This private company just became the first to get an official green light to land on the moon, and it could shape the future of space exploration

On Tuesday, Moon
Express, a privately funded commercial space company,
announced that it has gotten official permission to land on the
moon.

Moon Express is the first private company given the green light
for a lunar landing.

A moon landing has only been accomplished by three nations — the
United States, the Soviet Union, and China. Since it was founded
in 2010, Moon Express has been working diligently towards its
goal of joining these three nations.

Providing humanity with a plan B

Rephrasing John F. Kennedy’s famous line, Jain explained that
Moon Express chose to the go to the moon not because it is easy,
but because it is profitable. Although the lander will be
equipped with scientific instruments, the company's main goal is
mining
for metals, fuels, and moon rocks — which some
estimates have valued at $16 quadrillion dollars.

“We see this as a first step in providing humanity with a plan B,
rather than living on a single point of failure called Spaceship
Earth,” Jain said.

Jain said that the fact that something that cost NASA billions of
dollars a few years ago can be done for under $10 million
dramatically transforms space exploration.

Moon Express is one of 17 contenders for Google’s Lunar X-Prize, a $30
million dollar challenge to land a spacecraft on the moon, travel
1,640 feet, and transmit high-definition photos and video back to
Earth.

It is the first private space company ever to ask for permission
to travel beyond Earth’s orbit, setting a precedent in space
regulations. In order to be more persuasive,
it came up with its own temporary framework, allowing
the US government to oversee the mission.

The beginning of our lives in space

The company hopes to launch toward the end of next year aboard an
experimental rocket built by Rocket Labs, an aerospace company.
Although it has developed and tested a large prototype lander,
Moon Express still needs to produce a miniaturized version for
the mission. Jain said that they are currently testing the
navigation and propulsion system. They also need to work out the
payloads and the
software that will land the rover on the moon.

While NASA has had its eyes on Mars in recent years, Jain
believes that the best way to learn to live there is to start by
living on the moon.

“It’s much better to learn to live off the planet when you’re
only a few days away rather than months on Mars,” Jain said.
“We’re going to need to go the Moon first. That’s our stepping
stone, and the beginning of our lives in space.”